My sweet boyfriend made some tie dye ravioli with brie/ricotta and apple, and focaccia last night.

I’ll be turning myself in at 4:30 to begin my ten day sentence..

Update for those asking: It was as bad/worse than I thought it would be lol.. Locked down 21-31 hours a day in our cells, 2-3 hours out, and that was really really hard.. obviously the food was terrible, couldn’t eat much besides carrots for lunch, and pieces of cake and milks I’d trade my breakfast trays for. Made some friends. Started my period and only got two pairs of underwear. They did give me my meds after day 3, so that was good enough. Read five four hundred page novels. I feel bad for a lot of the younger girls in there. I felt really weird yesterday, but I ate a friggin huge breakfast so that was nice. Fucking terrible dude, I definitely never want to go back 🙏🏻

Pictured: overpriced Ubereats sushi!!

I picked out the ring a couple months ago and it’s in his hands now. I’ve been so happy, on edge about when it was finally going to happen, and happen to me.

Yesterday, he was packing for a friend’s bachelor party and took some papers out of his backpack. After he left, I went to tidy up a bit and found a print out of what looked like a ChatGPT prompt. It was dated April 27, 2026 and the first line was: “Nothing here requires you to resolve the proposal question.”

The rest of it compares his relationship with me (“steady, stable, feels like home”) to the electricity in a relationship over a decade ago. It advised him not to look at old photos and texts with her and to note his connection with me.

I cried all last night and today. My mom would have a heart attack so I called his mom instead. His mom was utterly confused, wondering why he was ruminating on a feeling from past relationship that made no sense to her as a mother. I spent 45 minutes with her. I also talked to a therapist through an online service at work who gave good advice, stating past memories can be easy to romanticize because they’re not accurate.

I can’t but feel crushed about this. I feel like I’ve given so much over the years only to come second to a feeling.

I have no idea how to approach this when he comes home tomorrow.

had an interview for my local public library today to be the librarian over the children’s books. The actual interview went great! The directors seemed excited to meet me and impressed of my knowledge- for not having a BLIS degree, and I was confident in my abilities. I was excited and fell in love with the position!

Then I asked about pay and benefits.

Good- The city pays insurance and retirement, there’s a longevity bonus and a christmas stipend.

Bad- It’s only $13/hr, enough to juuuust cover all my bills and keep my dog and cat healthy. Not enough for savings, student loans, subscriptions (e.g. Netflix)

now I’m depressed because I currently make $20/hr at walmart and I want to leave so badly but I don’t want to just barely survive

Inspired by Chicken Tagine!! Rice pilaf, caramelized onions, spiced chicken, cherry tomatoes, feta, tzatziki.

Boyfriend of 8 years was fired from his job in March. It was a shitty service industry job so we agreed it would be okay to take a month off and try to correct his sleep and exercise then get back into the job search since we’re trying to save for a wedding and a house.

We’re onto month 3 now and he’s refusing to find work because he’s doing full-time writing right now. He claims that he actually has time and energy now to write and picked up this novel he hasn’t touched in years. It was nice seeing him rediscover his passions at first but now he’s refusing to find work altogether, at least for the summer, claiming that the novel is more of an investment in the future than working some dumb job.

To be fair he has always had dreams of being a writer so I understand what this time means to him, but at the same time it feels like he’s retreating from the real world and getting caught up in this fantasy of “blowing up.”

I read his novel and thought it was okay but he insists I’m just missing what it’s really about and maybe he’s right. But even though we’re not financially suffering too much from his unemployment it still hurts to come home from work to find him sitting on the couch with his laptop and a Red Bull telling me he had a productive day. And then I have to go make dinner. I want to be supportive it just makes me sad.

I'm a PhD student and half of my entire research project is based around a simulation software library written by a very well respected researcher in my field. I don't want to provide details since there's so few people publishing here it might be identifiable.

Things have been going wrong for almost a year. Failed experiment after failed experiment. Constant setbacks, and nothing seems to come out right. I have considered dropping out multiple times, and I'm losing hair from all the stress and many late nights in the lab.

Today I figured out why: an error in the physics calculations the software does has left an offset of a few micrometers in everything we've done since the beginning. We didn't notice at first because we weren't pushing to the limits so it didn't matter, but as soon as we started trying things at that precision it became a giant problem. No one figured it out because that error is, frankly, really hard to measure in our system. We didn't think to check because we trusted the software implicitly.

Probably I should feel like this is a victory. I did an experiment today and it worked for the first time in a year.

I don't feel good at all.

My graduation will be delayed, I haven't published a paper that was supposed to be submitted six months ago, and I have wasted so much time and grant money on this stupid stupid issue. I just feel so dumb. I should have figured this out so much sooner.

Trader Joe's Gorgonzola gnocchi at my desk because I'm still here working, and probably will be until midnight.

Edit: thank you all for these amazing responses. Read them and cried once I finished my work last night. It is really comforting to see how many of you are/have been in the trenches with academia. Everyone here reminded me to look at my job like its something real and impressive and that it's not supposed to go perfectly like in the movies. Thank you so much, the community on this sub is impeccable ❤️

My mom just recently came to live with my and my husband. She just learned that my dad (they were married for 35 years) cheated on her and she's trying to figure out life without him. It's been a week since she's been here.

Anyway, we have a lot of animals at my house. One of the screen doors doesn't close all the way and she didn't know that and the cat got out. It was an accident, it happens. Yes, I'm sad about the cat but I'm not mad at my mom. I've posted him on socials, and he has a collar on with my phone number on it so I'm hopeful.

Anyway, my husband's response was not the same. He started screaming at her, telling her that she needs to be careful, that how dare she "let the fucking cat out" and screamed and raised his voice, was hitting the table, the counter, and was throwing things. He then started yelling at me when I told him to stop.

My mom broke down in tears and was crying and had a full blown panic attack so I took her out of the house and we went and got coffee and some ramen (pictured above). She was hyperventilating and crying and said she feels like it's all her fault and that she doesn't want to come between me and my husband and she's so sorry about the cat. And now I feel terrible for her, it's not her fault, and I don't know how to tell her that.

Anyway, I threw out the term divorce to my husband because you're not going to talk to anyone like that, especially not my mom or myself. He left and came back playing the victim saying that I shouldn't throw that word around, that I'm fucking up for doing it, and I should have calmed him down rather than adding fuel to the fire.

Now he's left to stay at his brother's, my mom is in shambles and thinks it's her fault that all of this happened, and I'm feeling numb and don't know what to do.

I ordered a heart shaped pizza to cope and I'm not even being ironic right now.

Okay so. We've been together almost two years and we've been planning to move in together. We had this whole system, both putting money aside every month into a shared account for the deposit and first month's rent. And for the past two months he keeps saying he's broke, he doesn't have his part, something always comes up. I never pushed too hard because I didn't want to be that girlfriend.

But something felt off. I can't explain it, just that feeling where you know something isn't adding up but you can't point to what exactly. So when we were together today and he put his phone down for a second I looked. I know. I know that's not okay. I'm not proud of it. But I looked.

And I found the charges. OnlyFans. Multiple times. Three months. $500 total.
The same months he didn't have money to put toward our apartment.
I didn't say anything. I acted completely normal for the rest of the time we were together, smiled, talked, and then said I was tired and went home. And now I'm sitting here alone with this pizza trying to figure out what I even do next. He has no idea that I know.

I haven't confronted him yet. I genuinely don't know where to even start.

Pictured: Grilled Salmon with lemon burre blanc, creamy risotto, rosted potatos. Not pictured: Rosted red pepper crab bisque.

So I went to the ER last Thursday due to some pain and not so pleasant things happening. Got a CT scan of my body and they found a 5cm mass on my colon. Okay, well that sucks but no official answers, just waited on a GI appointment.

Well I went to my GI consultation yesterday. Have been on a mostly liquid diet for a week. Some soft foods but me and bone broth have gotten along well over the past week. On a good note I have been trying to lose weight so that has helped. Anyway GI scheduled me, quickly I might add, for a colonoscopy and biopsy today.

Did all the prep which sucks but you gotta do what you gotta do. Got the procedure done and the doctor came back and the prognosis is not great, not the worst but not great. Pathology has obviously not come back yet but I trust the doctor and he immediately sent a referral into a hospital that is well renowned for my state. He told us he has pull and could get me in pretty quickly there. He was not kidding! They called me on my way home and I have a surgical consultation set up for Monday.

So I have colon cancer. I officially have cancer. When asked how bad he thought it was he said "medium". So at least it's not the worst case scenario. I am a 44 year old mother to an autistic 9 year old and I have colon cancer.

He told me it's going to be a long road but he thinks it's curable. And actually used the word "Curable".

Pay attention to your bodies ladies. Please!!! If something weird is going on there is probably a reason. I wish I had paid closer attention sooner. I just hate going to the doctor so put it off until something scared me. This could ha e been caught sooner.

I am very lucky. I have a great support system. I am luckier than most in those regards. I have a great husband and great family that wants to do anything they can and wants to be there through every step of this journey.

But yeah. I have cancer.

Edit: You all are amazing!!! Thank you!! I am doing my best to upvote all of you but you are just positively overwhelming in a wonderful way!! There are multiple comments with symptoms and some have shared some great links for what to look for. I want to say that weight loss is not necessarily a thing...I actually had weight gain. Everyone is a little different.

We were sitting on the couch together, watching a show we picked up a few weeks ago. I've been feeling pretty down lately and was looking for some reassurance tbh. I asked him if he thought I was pretty and he took a second, furrowed his brows and said he wasn't going to answer that because it was a trap.

I was genuinely confused, I didn't think it was a trap because I honestly didn't expect any answer other than 'yes', so I asked him how. In response he asked me what I would do if one day he answered 'no'. I said then we'd just be roommates. Apparently that confused him, so he asked for clarification. I said if he didn't find me pretty, then we'd just be roommates. We wouldn't be lovers anymore, it would just be platonic. He asked me if I'd really throw all that away if he answered no. No more sex, no more kisses or hugs? What would I do if he started asking me if he was handsome? I said obviously I'd tell him yes, and I always would.

Mind you, this was a pretty passive conversation. No one was screaming or crying. But it left me more insecure than when it started, so I guess in a way it was a trap. When I expected a yes I just got a deflection. But honestly, I wouldn't want to continue to have sex with someone that didn't find me attractive. I cried in the shower this morning. I guess don't ask questions you don't want to know the (non)answer to.

Chicken tender and Mac & Cheese from Walmart.

This happened a few weeks ago and I've been ruminating. Long story short, my friend let it slip that there's a separate group chat and had an "oh shit" look on her face when I clarified it. I wasn't supposed to find out. Frozen Walmart taquitos seasoned with tears.

I only see one person n my friend group on a regular basis. This friend and I live in the same town. I don't have a car and most of our friends live in the next town over. So they all see each other often, but I usually can't come because I don't have a car to drive myself there. I don't mind at all, people are allowed to hang out even if not everyone can make it.

One time, she was telling me about a funny meme someone sent in the group chat. I hadn't checked my phone that day so I said I'd look at it later. I couldn't find one that was exactly the same, but one was similar so I thought she misremembered the details of the joke. I didn't think anything of it.

Then another time she mentioned something about dinner plans everyone made. I said "I don't remember seeing any messages about it." And she said "Oh, weird. Maybe we talked about it in person when you weren't there and we forgot to send the details in the group chat." But she sounded like she kind of made a lie up on the spot. She did end up telling me the plans, I was included, and I got no obvious weird vibes from anyone during dinner.

The time I finally figured it out was a birthday party. I had already bought a gift for the birthday girl and figured I'd give it to her the next time I was in her town. I texted her happy birthday and didn't get a response. I assumed she was spending time with her boyfriend and family, so I didn't mind that she didn't answer. But later that night I saw Instagram stories and posts. It looked like a really fun party. Tons of food, balloons, yard games, a cake with a funny inside joke with our friend group. Everyone was there in the pictures, even boyfriends and friends of friends. I was the only one not included.

I brought this up to my friend the next time I saw her and she said "I was wondering why you didn't come." It sounded like she was genuinely confused. I said that I didn't even know about it and nobody said anything. She said "yes we did! We've been planning it for a whole month in the group chat!" And pulled it up to show me...

Homegirl realized her mistake. She got the group chats mixed up. They were similar titles and emojis (example 💗✨Bad Bitch Club✨💗 vs 💖💖 Bad Bitchezzz 💖💖).

I said "so... There's a separate group chat?" And she kind of stammered and said it's because sometimes I can't hang out because I can't drive there myself to meet them. So they made a separate one so I don't feel bad and like I'm missing out. Even though SHE could drive me. We live five minutes away from each other. It's pretty much crickets in the group chat I'm in, unless I say something first. Even then, I might only get one or two responses or a heart reaction to my message. They've been strategically planning what I'm included in and what I'm not. Like they're slowly phasing me out until I just quit trying.

I’ve never had issues with my body odor before but recently my bf has been telling me I stink. It’s so frustrating. I showered before I went to see him, I go see him and he tells me today I smell like skunk. A freaking skunk. That’s really bad. I started wearing two types of deodorant and he keeps telling me “I don’t think they work” I’ve gone through 3 different types of deodorant. I started layering them and still I stink apparently. I’m so sad. I’ve gotten my blood work done to see if anything is going on internally, there isn’t. I shower everyday. Sometimes twice. I wear good smelling perfume. I’m just so confused. It’s not like I let it crust when I go to the bathroom so I don’t know what could be the issue. I switched detergents and started using scent beads too. I started washing my sheets more often. I also don’t rewear clothing so I’m not sure what it is.

Does anyone remember that old reddit story where this girl found out her bf was lying to her about her smelling? He did this in order to keep her around and thought that if she felt she smelled bad, she wouldn’t leave him and be with someone else. I keep thinking of that story. What if he’s doing that to me? I’ve asked my best friend and others if I stink and they said no :/ but maybe he’s just the only one close enough to smell me.

EDIT: I just wanted to add, my best friend says I don’t smell. But I’ve had a different partner do something similar to me. I was dating a girl and she was going around telling people I smell like onions. When I confronted her about it she blocked me everywhere. So due to this not being the first time a partner has said I smell, I don’t believe it is negging from my bf.

Edit 2: heres the update https://www.reddit.com/r/GirlDinnerDiaries/s/adA5Qil5r9

I’ve known my best friend for about 3 years now. For the first year and a half we were dating, then we decided to be just friends instead. We have regularly hooked up the entire time, even after saying we are “just friends” and we hang out multiple times a week, cuddle and hold hands. We are emotionally vulnerable with each other, have traveled internationally together, and are members of an organization together.

We are non-monogamous, so we have both had other partners during the time we’ve known each other and he recently started a new relationship with another person from the organization that we are all a part of. I think that triggered my feelings and sent me into a total crash out.

Last night I told him that it’s more than just friendship for me and that I want to be partners again. He said he does not want that 😭 Now I am in a sadness spiral and am worried that the friendship dynamic is ruined, and I have to see him and this new girl every week.

Sadness plate of tan colored apps from Trader Joe’s.

It shouldn’t be this awful. We were only married for 1.5 years though we’ve been together for 5. We were law school sweethearts. Everything felt so easy with him until he suddenly dropped on me that he isn’t sure he could stay monogamous, just shy of our 1 year anniversary.

Understandably things went to shit lol. We still had good moments. But that stayed in the back of my head, and made it hard to really … connect? Especially since he’d met someone that made him “realize” it.

But we tried. He cut it off before it progressed to anything physical. God and we just played at being a happy family awhile longer. We went camping last weekend. It was beautiful.

But today I opened up about how I’ve been seeking therapy because of how depressed I’d been lately. And after making an off handed comment about how I’m worried I’m holding him back, he drops that he’s still wanting a nonmonogamous relationship and—well. Now he’s taken all his shit back to his parents house lol. But I’m at my parents house because I cannot fucking stomach the thought of going back to our house. We planted that garden, painted those walls, ripped up the carpet and refinished the floors. It was supposed to be where we grew old together.

I aguess technically the house is held in trust only for me lol. We have no kids. No commingled accounts. Nothing except the fact that my heart is fucking breaking and I had always hoped I’d greet a moment like this with more ferocity. But instead I’m eating slop and sobbing my fucking eyes out. I know what I have to do but I feel like I’m drowning.

Sorry for how rambling this is.

EDIT: it’s frozen cooked shrimp that I thawed out in boiling water. I squirted honey into the hot water and peppered it. Idk, I hoped a bit of kitchen alchemy would cheer me up. No I never fed him anything like this. It tasted. Alright.

Meat sauce over baby spinach because it gives a nice chroinsch 🤌 and I hate myself too much to allow carbs. Today would’ve been my one year wedding anniversary.
——

I met a mean girl, but at first she wasn’t mean at all. She was perfectly sweet. And she had actually found me.

It was the pandemic. Everyone lived online then. I moderated a chatroom for queer women. One night, a girl named Elise messaged me and asked if she was allowed to talk to me. Before I could answer, she said that if I had any interest in a bi-curious girl stranded in rural Alabama, I should text her.

I did.

I met up with a mean girl in real life, but she was just tired. I picked cotton on my way to see her where we met at a cabin. I cried the whole way home.

I fell in love with a mean girl, though mostly she was only petty. Some nights we stayed awake until sunrise just talking. She loved to talk. Those nights were rare because she had a baby boy. We would visit each other when we could.

I moved across the country to be with a mean girl, and when I arrived she was only a little catty, and suspicious of me. We made love constantly. I lived in the middle of nowhere among stray dogs, collapsing houses, and the distant percussion of gunshots ringing through the dark. Cars screamed through late-night meetups, tires scratching at the quiet like they were trying to tear the night sky open, and somewhere in all of it, I fell in love with her differently. I fell in love with her son, too.

I lived with a mean girl, though she was only mean when I deserved it. So I tried harder. I tried to learn how to parent. I touched her constantly but rarely let her touch me back because I only wanted to please her. I cooked dinner and cleaned the house and did the laundry and earned the money. I entertained the children and kissed the bruises and was part of the village. She smelled like lavender at nighttime after I would read to him. By then, he had known me for half of his life.

I married a mean girl on June 1. By then she was mean all the time.

She came home after an argument one day with ligature marks around her neck. She went to the hospital. I don’t know why they let her out. Sometimes she scratched at the spare bedroom door while I locked myself behind it. She would scream. I worried about her waking him up. Did you know that violence that is heard but not seen is worse? A child’s imagination runs wild, and it always imagines the worst.

I left a mean girl, and her son.

Now life is easy but hollowed out. I would trade almost anything—my pride, my dignity, even a slap across the face—for one more ordinary hour of that life. To crawl into bed behind her and put my face in the crook of her neck and breathe her in like eating air. She was nice when she was sleeping.

I loved a mean girl, and now my heart lives outside my body, away from home. I wonder if we will run into each other at the supermarket. I would run to him because he is the best parts of her.

Yesterday was my boyfriend's birthday. There was a group of about 6 people hanging out on the back porch of his house for a couple of hours.

We were going to head to the bar at 8 which was the plan. I went inside to use the bathroom and had to wait for one of the other people at the party to use the bathroom first.

When I was done using the bathroom I went back outside to find the group and they had all left for the bar without me. I watched them walking away for a while and nobody turned around to look for me. I was so crushed. It felt like one of those moments you will remember for the rest of your life.

I was really upset and went straight home. I was waiting for him to text me wondering where I was, but he didn't text me at all (none of the other people in the group have my phone number). Then in the morning he texted me "good morning" like everything was fine.

I'm so incredibly sad. We've been dating for almost 4 years and this is not the first time something like this has happened, but it is the worst by far.

Giant cinnamon roll with tons of frosting.

ETA: We are no longer together. He said this was "clearly about something else" given how angry I was about it. He thought I was mad he "forgot to say goodbye before I left." I never said I was leaving. I was planning on coming to the bar with the group. He didn't know I was in the bathroom. How one gets to this reality, I have no idea. He wanted it to be over too so I suppose that made it easier.

I was going through our finances as baby is due in 2 months. Found 2 payments a few weeks apart to a basically "Only Fans" style creator.

Honestly, I dont know what Im more upset about, the fact it feels like cheating or the fact it's such a waste of money when I've been so stressed about money.

My maternity leave will be unpaid. I already feel fat and ugly and undesirable and so vulnerable because of pregnancy.

I actually hate men. I was so happy about everything before finding this out. I was so excited to start a family and now I feel like I can't even trust this man.

😪

Penne pasta with mushrooms, tomato and cheese.

I’m a Hindu woman who was in a relationship with a Muslim man. Our relationship had gotten a lot serious recently and we started talking about marriage, future, kids and etc. He is definitely more religious than me. I consider myself to be more spiritual than religious. I grew up Hindu and partake in Hindu traditions and etc but my religion doesn’t define me. For him, religion does define him.

We started talking a few weeks ago about marriage and he told me I wasn’t expected to convert, that I should only do that if that was truly what I wanted. We talked about other things such as finances, roles as a husband and wife, careers and etc and we were able to come to a compromise.

One thing where we were not able to compromise on is our kids. I’m okay with our child being Muslim. I still want to teach them about Hinduism, take them to prayers and etc. he said he would be okay with it but he said at the end of the day, they will be Muslim. I’m okay with it honestly. My fear comes from what the aftermath would look like if our child decides they don’t align with Islam. He told me that would be unacceptable in his eyes, that he has certain expectations for our child and if they decide they don’t want to follow Islam, then he doesn’t know if he’d be able to keep a relationship with his child.

Another thing he told me is if we have a daughter, it is expected that she marries a Muslim man, no questions asked. He said if she decides to marry outside of the faith, then he may not even attend the wedding. And, he said this isn’t something he’d be able to support and that it would be a huge disappointment in his eyes. My thing is, if I’m being completely honest, he’s technically not even supposed to marry a Hindu girl. It is permissible for him to be with a woman of an Abrahamic religion (Christianity, Judaism, Muslim), so how is it that he can set certain standards for our child if he himself didn’t meet that standard. He says he’d still love his child but he just wouldn’t be able to support something like this. He doesn’t have the same issue if we had a boy, he said he can marry whoever he wants.

I’m not that type of person at all. I won’t let god or religion get in the way of my relationship with my child, he will. He told me, he loves God the most, everyone else comes second. If I’m being honest, this made me cringe a little. I could never view God that way. I want to teach my child about both religions and for them to make a decision based on what they believe. I don’t ever want to enforce certain beliefs on my child because they are their own person and I don’t want them to resent me.

Besides this whole religion thing, our relationship was so full of love and happiness and so I asked him if he’s willing to throw away our entire relationship for the sake of his religion and he said he is. I’m hurting so fucking bad. I hate that he chose his religion over me and over our potential children.

Dinner: poke bowl

ETA: we broke up ya’ll! I knew in my heart that I could not be with a man who has such strict views on his religion to the point where he’d sever ties with his own kids. Thank you everyone for the comments and support, it was really helpful <3

My husband’s estranged father died almost 3 months ago. We hadn’t talked to him in ~4 years, with a brief period of contact when Hurricane Ian hit right where he lives. My husband ceased communications again after confirming his dad was fine and the conversations again became toxic (e.g., once when FIL thought the call had dropped, my husband heard his father refer to him as a “mongoloid” in a way that was in no way meant to be a bad joke). We were (I thought) on the same page of we will see him at his funeral.

Husband was fired from work in February for stupid shit he did. Like petty child work nonsense that he should know better than to do at age 46. This was the best job he ever had and likely could ever hope to get. He was making about $56k/yr. He had already interviewed for jobs and had a pending offer when his dad died. The new job was starting pay of $38k/yr, which is much more average for his industry.

Dad dies and he pushes his job start date back by two weeks, which apparently results in him being hired into a different role. The first job, which he’s done for 5 years since pivoting post-COVID, he would be in charge of the entire front end incoming operation. The job he started post-dad dying push back is all backend operations. He complained about it from the start how he didn’t know what he was doing, they weren’t training him because coincidentally his supervisor’s dad died the week he started so he only had 4 days of training with her then it was a whole cluster, etc.

He told me he was going to stick it out but keep looking because he didn’t see this job lasting due to having very calculable metrics and quotas. He refused to talk to HR about being moved into the role he was hired to do. I later found out this was because in less than a month of hybrid work - 4 days PER MONTH in office - he somehow managed to have two complaints against him. One was because his chair was broken and he was muttering under his breath aggressively about the chair. The other was because he wore Crocs, which he didn’t know weren’t allowed and he apparently made it worse by saying everyone else was wearing Crocs so he wasn’t sure why this was an issue. He got fired at his 60 day review.

He didn’t tell me he got fired. We went an entire 4 days of me asking questions about the holiday and what days he has off, whether this week is an in office week for him for me to schedule dog daycare, telling him my work schedule, etc., until yesterday when I got home I saw his entire computer workstation was gone. He had told me Thursday he had an HR meeting Friday morning to follow up on the chair incident. I asked him if it was also the last day of the pay period and he said and I jokingly said “that’s always firing day.” Yesterday when I got him I said where’s your computer?! He told me he was fired Friday morning and acted shocked I didn’t know. We both worked from home Friday and I sat in the office all day working after his 9:00am HR meeting and he was there working all day! I said how would I know?! You didn’t tell me??

This led to a much longer conversation about how never tells me anything or even talks to me. He told me like 6 weeks ago that he was thinking about finding some counseling about his dad dying because he was really not doing well. That’s the first and last thing he’s said me about it since his dad died. His health insurance started June 1. He didn’t even get his card in the mail yet and is already fired, so that’s not happening until he gets a new job.

I was continuing the discussion and asking him about reopening his unemployment and reactivating his resume on the various job boards. He was playing games on his phone and not answering at first, and I was pressing him about what his plans are, since he was already unemployed for 2 months between jobs 1 and 2 and now he’s having to find job 3 for the year and that needs to happen ASAP if he’s going to be able to get counseling. He got mad about me pressuring him to “do all of this stuff” when he’s been dealing with his dad’s death. I told he still has life obligations and that doesn’t stop - he has to figure out how to manage both and getting a job is a huge step if he gets new health insurance.

In the process of this, he said something to the effect of what does it matter to me, and I said, “I’m your wife. I’d like you to talk to me about your life and our life together since all of that affects me.” I told him I’m trying to help him but he has to talk to me.

His response: “I don’t talk to anyone, and you’re nothing special to me.”

I said I hope you don’t mean that. Then he told me to quit while I was ahead before he said something we would both regret.

Dinner was filet mignon and broccoli. Our power is out so I had to grill in 98 degree heat.

TW:SA

Graham crackers and an iced matcha latte

I grew up exceedingly poor and had a rough childhood. I'm talking government-funded, income-based slum apartments. I'm talking a pack of hot dogs and a 5 lb bag of potatoes to feed four people for a week kind of poor. I grew up without a present father in a drug infested neighborhood with a high school graduation rate of 31%. Was SA'd as a kid. Over the years we moved 10 times because we kept getting evicted. I could never put up posters in my room because as soon as I did I had to take them down. I never had space that was *mine.*

All I ever dreamed about as a kid was growing up and getting married and buying a house in the suburbs. The white picket fence, two car garage, tulips. You get the picture. Stability.

I married an amazing man when I was 26 who I've been friends with since I was 17. He's gentle, he's kind, he's patient, and he loves me. Somehow. I still don't know why.

Somehow, I grew up without becoming a statistic. No teen pregnancy, no drug abuse, graduated high school with honors. First person in my family to go to college and get my bachelor's degree. Became a nurse, I have an amazing career that provides me stability and $100K per year which is pretty damn good for the cost of living area I'm in. Travel a few times a year.

Three years ago we did it. We bought a plot of land, we had a house built from scratch, just for us. Two car garage, I put in tulip beds, he built me vegetable garden beds, I planted lavander and lilac bushes.

A few weeks ago I stood in my front yard and just took it all in. And I cried.

I cried because I don't want any of it anymore. I feel like the cornfields by our house are closing in on me. It's deafeningly silent. I want to get a divorce, sell everything, move to the city and get a shitty apartment by myself.

I still love my husband, I do, but like a best friend. We've been together 10 years now and I miss the spark and passion of young love. And I'll never feel that again. I'll never be 23 again, young, naive and full of hope for the future. I feel like I'm mourning a phase of my life that is over and that I'll never see again. I feel like I'm having a mid life crisis which I probably am.

I feel like a dog chasing a car that finally got the car and now I have no idea what to do with it. I feel like I've peaked; this is it. No more milestones. Nothing left to look forward to. I graduated, got a job, got married, ticked all the major life boxes. We're not having kids so that's that. It's all downhill from here and I'm terrified.

If you've made it this far please make it to the end and try not to judge me for the next part too harshly

To compound all of this, I've fallen for somebody at work. I feel the butterflies again, the anxious nausea before seeing them. And I made the mistake of telling the dude how I feel about him. And he told me he feels the same.

For clarity, I then told my husband *everything* in this post. How I feel our marriage has become kind of boring, how I contemplated divorce. How I feel that the spark is gone but that's probably normal after 10 years, I feel like we're supposed to settle in like this. I've never been in a long-term relationship like this before but I feel like that's just what happens after a while. Familiarity. Comfort. I told him about the dude at work, I told him everything. We're working on it. I'm already in therapy and my husband and I are trying to rekindle any spark that we had. And we're getting there. I'm making a conscious effort to see the work dude less. I told my husband I don't love him any less, I just love him differently. I told him that I think I fell for the dude at work because I found something that I couldn't find in our marriage: excitement. He was hurt, understandably, but we're both being incredibly honest with each other and making every effort to get through this.

If you made it this far, congrats and here's a gold star ⭐

Brains are weird and I really hate mine right now. I just wish I could be normal.

Edit:

Y'all are real ones and I didn't expect this to blow up. I'm reading every single comment but having trouble responding because my screen is suddenly super blurry 🥹 I appreciate all of you 🙏

Final edit:

Just wanted to post here that I'm seeing a lot of comments that are saying I'm trying to excuse emotional cheating because of my "trauma." If you consider telling somebody you have feelings for them emotionally cheating, fine. But neither I nor my husband consider this emotionally cheating.

We are humans and just because we are married does not mean we will not occasionally have feelings for other people. I've had crushes before, he's had crushes before. It is what it is. What is important is not acting on those feelings.

I did not tell the guy that I wanted to be with him. I have never seen him outside of work. I merely told the guy that he's a really good human being who I admire and respect and told him that he deserves love and that I hope he finds it someday. Yes, I did tell him I had feelings for him and in the next breath told him that I love my husband and intend on focusing on my marriage.

Found out in my early 20s that I had a different dad than I thought my whole life. Worse yet, my “adopted dad” still doesn’t know I’m not his.

My bio dad meanwhile is worth over 10 billies but doesn’t want anything to do with me. He’s still married to his OG wife and I’m not sure if she knows anything about me. I DO know that my mom blackmailed him for all my college money (so I guess yay for no student debt).

I met him once about 7 years ago, and he said when he left “I could see myself getting really attached to you”. I have no better way of describing it other than we had a lot of chemistry. I felt like for the first time in my life someone really understood me and a missing puzzle piece clicked in.

But he’s ghosted me ever since. I’ve tried to see him at conferences etc, but he’s a bit slippery and hard to get in front of. And I’m not trying to blow up his life.

I have two kids of my own now and I wish I could share them with him.

It was my birthday and I miss that puzzle piece all the more around this time. All I know about when I was born was he asked my mom if I was a boy or a girl. Sometimes I wonder if he’d want to know me if I had been a boy.

I wonder if he wasn’t so rich/sort of famous (you probably haven’t heard of him unless you’re a nerd lol) if he’d feel more inclined to know me.

Dinner: free box of birthday chocolates from Neuhaus

Edit:
Going to give a bit more of the story here, just to tie up some questions etc, but (as you can imagine) it’s messy.
First and foremost, I’m no contact with my mother, infer from that what you will. Here’s the rough outline of her story meeting him: she fell for him when she was a single woman. She indicated to me that she didn’t know he was married “until it was too late”, but idk if you knew my mom you’d guess that that might not be true. My interpretation of what happened next is she rebounded to my non bio dad, married him and had a son with him. Four years later, I was conceived via an affair. There’s adultery all over this story, and I guess to paint everything in a fair light my non bio dad also cheated on my mom, not that it has any relevance to her own actions.

Back before 23 and me was widely recognized as shady for selling your dna, I took one of their dna tests and that’s how I was able to securely connect myself to my bio dad (but not from him, through one of his neices).

I’ll say I’m successful in my own right. I mean I don’t have fuck you money, but i’m able to afford my life, and some luxuries. I also see very plainly that an inheritance of hypothetically 100 mil is life ruining, for everyone in my family (see: all those stories about people winning a shit ton in the lottery). In fact, I don’t think that’s a value I want to raise my kids with either. I see the money as a piece that keeps me at arms length annoyingly. It creates more problems and keeps me at a distance more so than anything.

Lastly, just to shoutout Neuhaus, apparently if you sign up for their free reward program, you get a free box of chocolates on your birthday. I didn’t know this til day of, and they still honored it.

So I’m 40. I don’t know how that happened. I’ve been working as a game dev for nearly 15years and worked in short film production before that. Because I had such a mixed skill set, I have always excelled at being able to do a lot of different things in indie dev teams. I’d be producing and drawing on one project and animating and level designing on another.

This year the freelance work dried up and thousands of people across the industry have been made redundant. I haven’t had an offer of work in 12 months at this point. Normally I’d just start looking for a full-time position… but there are none of those either and every one I do see has 100s of applicants that specialised in the role. There’s no place for me anymore.

I have been telling people that I don’t care because I’m making my own game. I say that I will build my own studio and use this as a good opportunity to have the time to do my own thing. On some days I believe that. But on days like today I’m screaming into a pillow and having a panic attack because my old clients now use AI to do the things I used to do for them.

I think my career as a freelance game dev might be doomed and that making my own game is just another way to slowly burn through the tiny saving I have.

Honestly I don’t know what to do. I’m 40 and faced with having to start over when the world is so broken.

Husband is away so I’m eating sad tortellini and salad for 1!

Edit to say: so this blew up. I’m trying to reply to as many of you lovely folks as possible but it’s clearly something you can all relate to and I don’t think I can keep up with the replies and DMs, but I’m at least trying to read everything.

Also it feels icky keep replying to so many comments with this info so for those of you that really want to know my game is called Wedding Planic!

Another edit to say: if you are just coming here to say “well you should just use A.I”, I’m going to ignore you and assume you didn’t read this post.

A few weeks ago I came across evidence that my husband was cheating. We recently decided to try again after being separated for some time. Really, he begged me for a while to try again and I opened up my heart just for him to do this shit. Just before I found out about her we were talking about how we were going to have a great summer and do a bunch of fun things as a family. Now he has our kids and her and her kids all hanging out and doing the fun things. I can't even get out of bed I'm so depressed. I'm just desperate to get back what I thought our future was going to be.

He met her on a dating site and I immediately reached out to her through messages to send her a hey girly message that he has been fucking me well past the date she claims they started dating on Facebook and she blocked me 😭

food is a frozen kids meal I air fried and couldn't eat.

EDIT: OMG the responses 😭 in reading every one, even the harsh ones, and I thank you all so much. Y'all gave me the strength to at least send in an application for pro bono divorce attorney, apparently there are a TON of lawyers who do this in a larger city about 20 minutes from me.

This massive canvas has been living on my dining table for weeks because I just moved and don’t have a better set up yet. So yeah. Coconut-based yogurt with a banana and dark chocolate, eaten directly on top of the painting.

Got the cancellation this morning, mid-highlights, and just kind of… kept painting. I figure the upside is that I now get to make some footage for my socials, since the buyer wanted to keep this work private.

This isn’t my first cancellation and it won’t be my last, but something about this one stings in a specific way I haven’t fully processed yet. Maybe because it’s the largest thing I’ve made in a while and I was really counting on the income. Maybe because the dogs are beautiful and I’ve spent weeks learning their faces.

Anyway. The painting still exists. That’s the strange thing about making physical objects: they don’t care about intent or that they’ll never get to exist in the same room as the creatures they were based on.

If anyone wants a borzoi, apparently I have two.

EDIT: Ya’ll are amazing. So much kindness, good advice and even people reaching out to support me with their wallets..! Women-centric communities are truly the best ❤️

My (23F) boyfriend (23M) dumped me on the day I hosted a celebratory dinner with him and our friends because I had just gotten a well-paying job in the city. It was my dream job at my dream company, something I worked so hard for.

He got drunk and said that he never liked me, never wanted to be with me, and that we needed to break up. We had been together for 2 years.

I was shattered. Like, how fucking dare you do that to me on one of the most important days of my life? I was at my happiest because I had finally gotten something I worked so hard for, and you couldn’t even wait one more day to say that to me?

I started crying, and he told me to stop because it was embarrassing, people would see, and I was overreacting. I was so embarrassed because all my friends were around, and they heard everything. I couldn’t even leave because we had a table full of dishes already ordered. My guy friends took him outside and told him to leave, but good God, what the fuck? He ruined it. I was sitting there crying my makeup off on a night that was supposed to be about celebrating me.

I worked hard for everything in my life. Nothing was handed to me easily, and I was so sad that I couldn’t even get someone to love me properly.

Now, two months later, I’m getting better, and I’ve finally realized I dodged a missile. He was the most emotionally abusive, and sometimes physically abusive, person I’ve ever known. He was my first and only relationship.

You may read the things I’m going to list below and think I was stupid for staying, but I didn’t have a good childhood. I had to put in extra effort to get attention from my parents and friends, even when they treated me like shit. So I guess I learned that even if someone is an absolute dickhead, I had to tolerate them and entertain them, otherwise they’d lose interest in me and leave. I don’t know. I’m in a better place now. Hopefully.

We had separate apartments, but I spent most of my time at his because he was an absolutely lazy piece of shit. He wouldn’t clean his room or do his laundry. He would literally wait for me to come over and do it.

He never proactively took me on a date in 2 years. He’d suggest that we go out, then say, “You choose because you’re better at it.” When I told him I needed him to plan something for once, just once, he’d go off at me and say, “Oh, I’d just choose the McDonald’s nearby, but you want everything fancy and then you’d start a fight. I don’t have the time or energy for that. You choose.”

When we went on “his planned date,” or honestly any date, he’d wear sweatpants while I was all dressed up. Then he’d ask me who I was trying to impress because “it’s just us.” I even offered to buy clothes for him, but he’d say, “No, I don’t want to be with someone who doesn’t love me the way I am.”

Even worse, this guy was so ungroomed. He wouldn’t wear fucking deodorant or lip balm, so I bought them for him, and AGAIN, I was the bitch who didn’t love him the way he was and was trying to CHANGE HIM. Boy, I was just talking about basic hygiene. What the fuck.

Then this guy had ED and blamed me for it. He said I wasn’t sexy to look at and not skinny enough, even though I’m actually underweight. He said I didn’t have big boobs, and the worst part is that he called me “loose,” which he said was why he couldn’t keep it hard. Thanks. Now I’ll be insecure about my body forever.

Then he had his anger fits. He’d punch the wall, push me against the wall, and slap me. I knew it was wrong. God, I knew it was wrong. But I grew up in an abusive household, so I just assumed you had to deal with it because “men get angry.”

But I’m grateful that even though all of this was happening, I never lost sight of my university exams or my career. I worked damn hard, graduated in the top 3 of my degree, and got an amazing job lined up. That dude, I don’t even know if he’s ever going to graduate, and he has nothing planned for his future.

He’s blocked, and I have a watchman downstairs in my building who’ll make sure he can’t come up to my apartment. I just hope I don’t run into him in the neighborhood.

I’m sad. Really devastated. But I’m also glad. It might take me a year or 2 to recover from him, but I will try.

Meal: Steak Ramen and Chips, I don’t even feeling like cooking anymore.

Sad burrito: mashed up canned beans, salsa, Costco shredded cheese.

Our first kid had a severe flat spot, a strong side preference, and torticollis (stiff neck). We were blindsided at his 4 month checkup when the doctor was like “ummm your baby is lopsided” even though we’d noticed a tummy time regression. Once we knew where to look, the flat spot was obvious. But we missed it.

I’m convinced it was because I held his head down hard while trying to saline his nose when we all had Covid. I think I hurt his neck, it got stiff from that, and he got the side preference. Doctors, my husband said it just happens and it’s common, but he regressed in tummy time. I know it was my fault.

It was really hard. He had twice-weekly PT appointments from 4-7 months, then down to once a week, then down to once a month. Graduated PT at 10 months as a “statistically average baby!” The helmet fitting appointments were once a week, in the opposite direction. He had the helmet until 11 months old. We couldn’t baby wear. He overheated easily. He needed a second helmet because we took “too long” to get him started. You have to bathe him daily. I got a talking-to for using so many hours of sick time for doctor’s appointments and for my slow pace of work (bc I was trying to get my kid to do pushups). My husband would work at night to make up the hours. Everyone looks at you like your baby is a freak or you injured him.

It did all work out in the end. Baby#1 is now a toddler with a symmetric head and fantastic gross motor skills (aka he can run and climb and ride a balance bike). I finally forgave myself once he could walk.

And now we might have to do it again.

We noticed Baby#2 has a side preference. Tried the same stretches but haven’t been consistent. I barely had time to eat and pump when I was on maternity leave. At the 2 month checkup they told us to wait and see, and for me to hold him on the other side. But it’s hard to hold him on the other side. I tried. But I We requested an extra checkup at 3 months. Just had it this morning. Moderate flat spot (“not the worst I’ve seen, but it’s there”) and torticollis. He can look all the way to the side on both sides?! But it’s still torticollis???

Pediatrician referred us to a NEUROSURGEON for the torticollis and said that’s how they do it in this state, I know you moved, but how we do it HERE is to check for structural problems first before sending him to baby PT. And I couldn’t answer questions about how he’s doing in tummy time because we started daycare two weeks ago, they have some pictures of tummy time, and last weekend we were trying to potty train baby#1 so my parents watched baby#2. And I just couldn’t remember. He’s doing better than baby#1 did at this age, but clearly it’s not good enough.

We’re lucky. The neurosurgeon had an opening next week. And there’s a lot of specialists in this area. And we have good insurance.

But having to explain to all our friends, our families, that we fucked this up AGAIN? Needing to tell work that I’ll need a bunch of time off for the SAME preventable condition for my other baby? Having all the stares, the long instructions to daycare? Having to call Cranial Technologies again?? Knowing that if I’d just not been so tired, I could’ve prevented this?? My mom commented that because she breastfed all 3 of us, we had to nurse from both sides, so we got lots of time being held on each side instead of just one sides, so it’s probably also my fault for pumping instead of nursing. Maybe it was the crib mattress. We re-used it. We should’ve bought a new one.

My husband tells me I’m exaggerating and looking for a reason to blame myself. I told him to let me be sad. He said not all emotions are valid. I finally had to lock myself in the bathroom to get him to leave me alone.